LETTERS FROM HOME: COMING CLEAN IN THE SEASON OF POSSIBILITIES

March 23, 1995

Dear Pat,

Spring is just reaching puberty in Southeast Missouri. You can feel the chlorophyll bubbling and see a thin veil of early leaves on the trees.

I spent most of the morning raking old, old leaves in our new yard, leaves thinking about becoming coal. A foot-long earthworm was underneath (I swear).

Beneath the leaves is a nether world of sticks and twigs and timid insects. I raked everything into piles that are starting to resemble the work of Mound Builders. Except our artifacts are discarded cigarette lighters, a smokeless tobacco box and soda cans. We ingested tobacco in sacred rites and subsisted on bubbly sweetened water, future archaeologists will say.

We're not the only ones working in the yard or peeling away old paint. Spring cleaning seems to be hard-wired into our brains. A time to sow and a time to unclog gutters. A time to clear away the cobwebs, literally and figuratively.

Everything seems possible now. Fresh air heals old wounds, and buried secrets eventually fade away in the sunshine.

Stuffy arguments over who's right and who's wrong become meaningless when there's baseball to play and bicycles to ride.

DC and I went to a variety show in a little town called Apple Creek, last weekend. It was real corny and the real thing.

At intermission we talked to an elderly woman who'd lived in Apple Creek all her life and had seen every show since it started 15 years ago. She knew every person up on the stage and everything she needed to know about them.

The town has a sense of community that revolves around the Catholic church and elementary school. It's based on faith and stability and a belief in the future.

We all stood and sang "America" at the end and meant every word.

How to find that same warmth and fellowship within a small city? Cape Girardeau isn't Mayberry, if it ever was. There are signs of gangs, historical racial divisions, political power struggles, impoverished inhabitants, drug crimes -- the same problems you see across the country, if milder versions.

It's also a beautiful city on the Mississippi River blessed with many green parks, high employment, churches of almost every affiliation, a taste for outdoor murals, some glorious old houses and a budding interest in preserving its heritage.

Somewhere in all that are many opportunities to become part of the community.

The people who live in our part of town have formed an association that strives to improve conditions in the neighborhood. We went to a meeting, so now we belong. I suppose there's more to it than that.

We live beside a small park. DC has made friends with two little girls, inseparable playmates, who spend their afternoons there. Angel is black, Danielle is white.

They haven't learned to fear their differences of color and opinion. We think they have much to teach us.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.